Well, the wife and I have been trying to not cop to it, but it looks as though we won't be making the 1/2 marathon in western Ireland we'd been planning. Our 13 year old cat needed major surgery, and we dumped a sh*tload on saving his little life (he's doing *great*, BTW), but it set us back too much to afford the trip. We'll only lose our entry fee as we hadn't booked any rooms or plane fares as of yet.

Since I'm so deep into my training and my times have improved immensely, I'm going to hit some local 10ks and possibly a trail race here and there so as not to waste it!

Bummer! One of our cats has had to have both orthopedic surgury to pin a leg back together after having been shot by some mystery person's 22, and a tooth extracted after he broke it in half somehow and it got infected. I've told him that when he hits $1,000 in vet bills he's out of luck, but he seemed unimpressed...not realizing just how close he's come to that figure on a cumulative basis.

Yeah, our little guy had an aggressive form of cancer and actually had to have a front leg amputated (!). Several vets recommended it and said he'd learn to adjust (which he truly has, incredibly fast) and the results say that it's probably completely gone, so we bought a couple of extra years with him.

They hold the race every spring in Ireland, so hey, there's always next year. Meanwhile, we'll explore more local competitions, maybe even take a short trip somewhere in the Pacific NW instead where awesome trails abound!

Oldman, I'm not surprised your cat was unimpressed by your threat because, hey, aren't they all unimpressed most of the time?

Rats, sorry to hear that. I'm glad your cat's OK though! I'm also no stranger to large vet bills for cats. I don't know why I do it, since they're pretty obnoxious most of the time anyway. Maybe I should get fish instead.

There must be another half marathon in southern california within a few weeks of the one you'd planned for. Maybe you can shoot for that instead?